


The Hearing

by LivetoDream333 (orphan_account)



Series: Double-O Drabbles [41]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: BAMF Q, Canonical Character Death, Ex-agent Q, It's late and I should never tag this late at night, James tries to help Q, M/M, Politics, Post-Skyfall, Q doesn't need a big strong agent, Q doesn't need it, a dinner date in the future one day, idiot politicians, possibly, shutting up now, unless of course it's for a date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-12 23:31:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3359354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/LivetoDream333
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When M was declared dead Q knew what would happen, knew and he didn’t do anything. He could have erased the evidence, could have begged Mallory, Tanner, and Bond not to say a thing, but he didn’t. He after all made the decision in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hearing

**Author's Note:**

> Warning, there is a description of a dead child in here--also a description of beheading. Not too gory, but still, might not be fun for some.  
> I started writing before I did my homework and this happened...

The Hearing

 

When M was declared dead Q knew what would happen, knew and he didn’t do anything. He could have erased the evidence, could have begged Mallory, Tanner, and Bond not to say a thing, but he didn’t. _He_ after all made the decision in the end. Q was finishing rebuilding new firewalls when two guards walked in. “R, I need you to finish this.” Q sighed, stepping back and holding his arms up. The guards silently pulled them behind his back, cuffing them together.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” R snapped, instantly going to Q’s defense.

“Don’t.” Q shook his head. “Just finish those last few lines for me, I’m sure you can figure it out, right?”

“No. Wha—where are you taking him?” She demanded.

“Holding, he’s to remain there until his hearing.”

“For what?”

“Treason, if you must know.”

“Q, they can’t—”

“They have every right to.” Q sighed. “Just go, hold down the fort, I’m sure things will be alright.”

800Q8

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to be treated like this.” Mallory said, slipping into the room and un-cuffing Q’s hands. Q knew he wasn’t talking just about the handcuffs.

“It’s okay. I know what I did. I expected this.”

“Do you have a contingency plan?” Mallory wondered, as if he was alright with Q bailing.

“No… I’ve always been honest. I’m not going to run. Besides…then I’d never be able to stop.”

“You could die.”

“Yeah…I could, but I did the right thing, so…I’ll be alright.”

“Q, you’re too damn proud.”

“Always.” Q nodded. “Thank you.”

“Need anything? Water, food?”

“Earl Grey please?”

“Of course.”

“With a drop of honey, please?”

“Yes, Q.” Mallory smiled gently.

800Q8

“State your name for the record.”

“Classified.”

“You’ve been stripped of your title currently, so it isn’t classified anymore and it isn’t in your file.”

“I don’t have a name.” Q stated.

“Are you trying to be difficult?”

“No, I’m being honest. I was dropped at an orphanage when I was a child and abandoned there. I have no legal name. Honestly, I was given about four different names there, I decided to go by Gabriel for a few years until I ran away at eight and became Benjamin, every few years I pick up a new name, but, technically, I don’t have a name except for the classified one I was given, which, technically, also isn’t my real name. I don’t have one.”

“What is your current name?”

“Dominic Roberts.”

“You were hired into MI6 when?”

“1998. I was eighteen.”

“That is a lie.”

“No, you just don’t have my full file.” Q shrugged.

“Mr. Mallory, you assured us this was his file.”

“It is, a lot has been redacted, his file is above top secret.” Mallory frowned, that fact wasn’t going to endear any of them to Q.

“Very well. You were promoted to Q after the explosion?”

“Yes. My boss, Major Boothroyd was killed in the blast and I was promoted.”

“By whom?”

“M—Olivia Mansfield.”

“And you were working on the mission known as the Skyfall Mission?”

“Yes. I was.”

“What was your job?”

“To provide my agent, 007, with weaponry, tech, information, aid, and guidance throughout the mission, as well as shouldering the need to bring him back in one piece.” Q answered honestly.

“Would you say you are good in your field?”

“I am the best in my field. There are only four other people in the world who could dream of competing with me.”

“Then how is it that you allowed Tiago Rodriguez into MI6’s systems.”

“I underestimated him. I was overconfident and didn’t take into account that I hadn’t had the chance to update security measures before I tried to take on Silva—sorry Rodriguez’s—work. I wasn’t fast enough, by the time I started trying to stop his hack I was already too late and the damage was done.”

“And did you also lead Rodriguez directly to your agent and your superior M.”

“Yes, I did. I left a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow, tracking blips that looked like flaws in my security so he could follow them.”

“So you admit to treason?”

“If that’s the definition of treason we’re going with.” Q commented.

“What do you mean?” One of them demanded.

“My job as Quartermaster is to do everything I can for my agents. I was in a branch that was hastily moved after it was destroyed. The things I could do were limited. I could have let Rodriguez burn the country looking for M and 007 or I could have led him to an isolated area that was mostly defensible and defended by the country’s best double-o agent. I did what I thought was best for everyone involved. I also sent an extraction team.”

“That made it an hour too late.”

“Yes, well, you’ll have to talk to them about that.”

“I find it ironic that you both allowed a terrorist to get free and then was singlehandedly responsible for that terrorist killing M—all while committing treason, I might add.”

“If treason means saving lives, I’ll do it again. You don’t understand the decisions that have to be made in the real world—”

“’Real world,’ forgive me, but you sit behind a desk.”

“Wrong, and you had my real file, you’d know otherwise. Before I became Dominic in 2011 I was Michael Campbell. I was hired in 1998 and trained as an agent. In 2002 I became a double-o agent. 003, to be precise. I was the agency’s best kept secret. M, Q, and William Tanner were the only ones to know I was on the roster. I was an assassin, a spy, a bodyguard, a whore, whatever England asked of me. I see something you bureaucrats don’t. If you knew, half of the things happening under your nose you’d never sleep again. If I told you all of the terrorists that were plotting every day, training in our backyards, recruiting our children off the streets, you would cry. If I told you the feeling a blood, bone, and brain matter of a child in your hands, you wouldn’t be strong enough to make it through the description. I’ve been out there. I know that sometimes the only way to save thousands of lives is to break a rule—a rule made by people who don’t know how bad it is out there, a rule made by people who’ve never had to worry about more blood than what a shaving nick causes. Forgive me for being part of the shadows in the world that keeps you happily ignorant. Aside from M’s regretful and devastating death, Skyfall was a successful mission.”

“Successful? It was a treasonous, failed mission.”

“Terrorist dead, thousands of civilians saved, thirty-two casualties, and the stop of a leak that would have brought about massive war on England because our allies would have thought we betrayed them? You’re right, we failed.” Q said sarcastic. “That was sarcasm, just so you know.” Q nodded to the transcriber. “It doesn’t translate well, I know.”

“Treason is—”

“Okay, let’s talk about treason then. I saved lives with mine…shall we talk about each of yours?” They looked at him with confused eyes. “Oh, politicians are always the most treasonous, slipping things into the law that go against the law to suit their needs. There are six killers in this room, and while Tanner, Mallory, and I had reason and license, three of you didn’t.”

“Are you trying to blackmail us? How do you even know these things?”

“Someone has to do the background checks. You met with M weeks ago, someone had to make sure she wasn’t walking into a lion’s den, which, she kind of did. Look, rule how you want, but as far as treason goes, we should all just get up and go to the block together, along with all of MI6, MI5, and about fifty percent of our soldiers. You’ve never lived in the real world, you don’t know what’s out there, but you’re always so eager to slit the throats of those who risk everything to keep you safe and sane. I’m fine though, if we all want to take a field trip to the block. I know from personal experience that once beheaded (if done right) the person is actually still conscious for almost a minute, also it’s isn’t quick, usually it takes more than one swing to hack off the spinal cord, so it’ll hurt really badly. I’ve come to terms with my sins and I’m content with them. I’ve never made a decision I regret, not in the field and not in my time guiding agents.”

800Q8

Q walked down the stairs as James ran up them. “007? What are you doing?”

“Q? The hearing’s out?” James inquired with wide eyes.

“Yes…”

“And they let you go?”

“Oh, I’m suspended for two weeks and on probation four months after that, but no, not getting the chair or anything.” Q shrugged. “What are you doing?”

“Going to tell them it was my idea…”

“Thanks, but…I’ve got it.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I told the truth. They don’t know the world we do, 007. It would destroy them. Plus, if you start describing what the real world is filled with they get a bit squeamish. Unfortunately, though, now I have to change my name—again—and get a new flat, not too happy about that. I just got settled in.”

“You don’t look frazzled at all.”

“When you see what we do, 007, you don’t get fazed by the monkeys in suits that don’t understand a damn thing.”

“You were an agent once…weren’t you?”

“Why?”

“You act like one.”

“I was…not something I’d like to continue to do, but I’m happy to keep my fellows safe.”

“I never thanked you.”

“You don’t have to.” Q nodded. “Now, I’m going to go home, hack into MI6 under R’s credentials and do all the work I bloody well want to. I’ll just have to make sure R knows what ‘she’s’ been up to.” Q chuckled. “I’m sorry…about M.”

“Not your fault.”

“Not yours either.” Q nodded. “Thank you for coming to save my ass, but…I’ve got it covered.”

“Really? Looks like quite the handful for you to be able to cover it all by yourself.” James winked.

“Do those lines really work?”

“Usually.”

“I was a lot more subtle in my day.” Q sighed. “Maybe you should take notes.” Q smiled, extending a hand. James raised an eyebrow and shook his hand, feeling a slight brush of fingers on his wrist, seeing the boffin lick his lips, and running a hand nervously through his hair after they’d let go, his eyes slightly glossy and distant. “Well, see you later?”

“Yeah…” James smiled, understanding how such subtleties worked for the boffin, he was gorgeous.

“By the way, Bond?” Q called.

“Hmm?”

“You don’t need those cheesy lines to get someone to want to go to dinner with you or to catch their attention.” Q winked before leaving the building.

“Holy hell…” James said with wide eyes.

“He’ll eat you alive, James.” Tanner commented as he walked up behind him.

“What?” James scoffed.

“Trust me, if you’d never met your match before, you have now. Unlike you, though, he knows exactly how to use everything he’s got, so you might as well ask him out now before he twists you into it.”

“How would you know that?”

“I watched his bloody missions. Never seen anyone so brilliant before.”

“Fuck me.” James breathed.

“Not until the sixth date.” Tanner commented dryly.

“How do you know that?”

“Reasons.” Tanner fidgeted before he walked off.

**Author's Note:**

> I can totally see Q as being completely suave and charismatic and completely comfortable in his own skin and being the one James should worry about, rather than the other way around, can't you?  
> Much Love.


End file.
